The dissociation of a personality : a biographical study in abnormal psychology / by Morton Prince.

  • Morton Prince
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The dissociation of a personality : a biographical study in abnormal psychology / by Morton Prince. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    mental life. Nothing of this life is known to the main personal stream of consciousness. The theory of a subconscious self will be discussed in another volume, and it would be premature to enter into the question here. I merely wish to point out in a general way that by a subconscious self I mean simply a limited second, coexisting, extra series of thoughts, feelings, sensations, etc., which are (largely) differentiated from those of the normal waking mind of the individual. In abnormal conditions these secondary thoughts may be sufficiently organized to have a perception of personality, in which case they may be regarded as constituting a second self. Such a second self is not known to the wak- ing self, which is not even conscious of its existence (ex- cepting of course by inference from acts). B III was such a subconscious self. Whether such a self, or any of the elemental states which comprise such a self belongs to nor- mal minds, or occurs only under abnormal conditions, is a secondary question that will be discussed in its proper place. But the question of what part subconscious states play in normal minds is one of the most pressing problems of psychology. However that may be answered, repeated observations of recent years by different students of these phenomena have shown that in unstable natures the mind may be disintegrated in such a way as to produce a doub- ling or rather a multiplication of consciousness and to form two, three, or more groups of subconscious states, which at times are capable of considerable independent activity. At times when excited they are capable of being stirred into fury, when they burst forth like a volcano, fermenting and boiling, in crises of a pathological character. Such were the so-called demoniac possessions of the middle ages, and such are the hysterical crises of modern medicine. [Appendix A.] In this account I shall describe with great detail the
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